I've heard that Sony are trying to compete with Xbox by making their consoles just as prone to failure.

Sony Vice President Ken Sakuraba said: "We don't understand what westerners want. More people are still buying Xbox 360s over Playstation 3s and the fucking things die every 20 minutes. In order to compete we have to offer the same guarantee on our systems. Any console bought after November 2009 will personally have had tea spilt on it's circuit board by me or a member of the Sony executive team."

there is a place in edinburgh can fix them for a lot less than 100 quid, when the gfs dads ps3 broke i took it to there (not sure how much he paid, but it was less than £100)

the guy told me that its a fault with the fans in the ps3, they dont keep the unit cold enough, so when it overheats, it will stop working to prvent a fire (like the red ring of death on xbox)

low and behold 2 weeks later, it broke, I took it back and true to his word, he fixed it again... free of charge, top bloke!

I could drop into him and see if he would give me an address and a price, if you wanted to send it up to him, it'll cost you a bit to send it, as you'd have to do it recorded delivery, but if it costs you say 50 quid to fix, and a fiver to get it sent up, plus a fiver to get him to send it back, your still saving 40 quid

Its called the Yellow Light of Death.
Theres a site that expalins how to fix it yourself using a heat gun and thermal compound.
I've fixed mine using the guide. it took me around 2.5 hours, including cooling time. Still going strong 4 months later

cheers for the help though lads. when i turned it on no lights would come on, unplugged it all, still wouldn't work. undone it all again and let it sit, tried again after it'd cooled down and now works.
odd!!!

wouldn't been just my luck, technology really does hate me, i've had 6 new hard drives on my laptop(s) in the past 12 months as well as a phone and vcr/dvd player breaking lately.

cheers for the help though lads. when i turned it on no lights would come on, unplugged it all, still wouldn't work. undone it all again and let it sit, tried again after it'd cooled down and now works.
odd!!!

wouldn't been just my luck, technology really does hate me, i've had 6 new hard drives on my laptop(s) in the past 12 months as well as a phone and vcr/dvd player breaking lately.

Problem will most likely come back, once the unit gets hot enough. As said by Lee you can fix it yourself, its pretty easy and doesn't take much time. I got my PS3 on the day of release, it also died a few months back. I fixed mine myself, hasn't gone wrong since.